Make It Stop

Published November 19, 2015 by
Mae McDonnell

It is a dark and rainy night here in the Big Apple. No different from many fall evenings, except that videos have surfaced of terrorists threatening Times Square, only a few days after the slaughter in Paris. The city is on high alert, with the much criticized NYPD doing extra patrols and sweeps to try to stop murder before it happens. Tonight, I was followed onto my train by a counter terrorism cop, who visually swept the car before nodding that the train could go on.

I usually resent the police presence in the subway. They stand
with assault weapons across their chest, the business end pointed down. How easy, I think, for them to accidentally shoot so many, if something goes wrong. They are often young and I wonder how many years they’ve been out of the police academy. They stand for hours, usually vigilant, usually watching. Watching us. Nodding one or two out of a hundred over to their tables, they swipe our bags with little cloths, analyzing the molecules that they pick up for evidence of planned destruction. When it is not my turn for inspection, I slide by them with a resentful glance at the fire power that has become normal to me, because I live in a world of increasing militarization.

This man, who was clad head to toe in thick padding underneath his dark blue uniform, carried only a pistol in his belt. And tonight, he reminded me that the city was under threat, which I had forgotten after my busy day in the office. And yet, I was glad to see him. What a brave man, I thought, to do this day after day. That’s admirable. I took a
long look at his dark brown eyes and curly hair. I took in the intense,
trained gaze, the dark embroidery of his name and unit on his pocket.

I should really work on my will, I thought. Just in case. You never know.

Today, too, my government began the legislation to deny refuge to 10,000 Syrians. It is couched and marketed with words that make it sound like something different. They called it screening, as though the multi-year screening process that we already had in place wasn’t sufficient. What it is, in reality, is a requirement that a single person sign off on every Syrian that we allow to come here. A single busy person. In reality, it means that we will deny even the paltry 10,000 that we’ve already promised to help. We will be as bad as Hungary. We will close our doors to the victims of our enemies.

Two hundred and eighty nine people got together in a room today and cast their vote that we should do this, even though every American school child is taught about how the U.S. made their immigration policies stricter for the German Jews during World War II. Even after we knew about genocide, we closed our doors. We are taught about how shameful that was, about how afraid Americans were. And yet, here we are, with an opportunity to redeem our country’s actions in those dark days….and two hundred and eighty nine of our elected officials thought we should repeat history instead.

The worst part, of course, is that this is in response to an attack by French and Belgian murderers. And yet, the call to keep French and Belgian visitors and immigrants out of our country has not come. It is the Syrian refugees who are being given the blame, as my country seeks to punish the victims of ISIS for something a bunch of Europeans did.

A few months after Baba was born, I joined the local parenting group on Facebook. The main topic of the last few weeks has been how the local shopping mall has replaced Santa’s giant Christmas tree with a
glacier display. The presumption was that the Christmas tree was somehow offensive and that the PC police were at it again. Surely, this was a sign of American values under fire, as those other people had to be accommodated. Christianity, itself, is under fire by the loss of the tree.

I admit to some confusion as to how a Christmas tree, but not Santa, would be insulting. In any case, the outrage was so ferocious that a small tree was added to the display. The parenting group was horrified; how could the mall insult them by putting such a small tree in place?

In the middle of this discussion, one hundred and twenty nine lives were taken in Paris. And then the bigots came straight out. It’s the immigrants. We need to stop the immigrants, they said.

My husband is an immigrant, I said. He’s worked here and paid taxes for over twenty years. What is your problem with immigrants?

Well, fine, they said. It’s the immigrants who are terrorists. Like the
ones who blew up our neighbors in 9/11.

None of those attackers were immigrants, I reminded them. I know that many people here lost people that they knew, that they loved. But immigrants didn’t do it. Immigrants want what you do — a better life for their children. A safer world. A place where there is plenty to eat.

Next you’re going to tell me what a great president Obama is, they said. Thank God these governors have the sense to not let Syrians come to their states. You won’t agree, but you must agree that it’s understandable.

But the attackers in France weren’t Syrians! I said. And that’s not even something a governor can do! Does anyone here think at all?

I am, as you might imagine, very popular in this group. The whole discussion disturbed me so much that I have been really considering if this is a place where I want to raise Baba, knowing that she will come into contact with people who speak so hatefully about people just like her father. We have been talking about selling our house and buying another in the same neighborhood, but now I am not so sure.

It was inevitable that I would find a news article that showed pictures of the French victims. My mouse hovered over the first picture, but then I had to look away. It is too much for me now. I see Baba in all of them. I think of the mothers that have been gutted by the loss of their children. I feel it too deeply. It is just another story of families torn apart by mass violence, just like the attacks in Lebanon the day before or the shooting in Kenya or the buses and markets that are attacked so regularly that we lose count of the dead. I have victim fatigue. I can no longer look at the victims of Virginia Tech or Oregon State or Sandy Hook. I can’t even watch the videos that the UNHCR publishes. I can’t read the stories.

Anger comes easier. Anger is so easy when I see the hate continue. I can only ask why we have a world in which young men become radicalized, in which they are taught to hate so much that they don’t even see their victims as other people. I want to know, to understand, why the world has become a place in which they can see no future for themselves. And then I want us to put systems in place to Make. It. Stop.

It seems so hopeless when all I can hear are my neighbors screaming for blood — the wrong blood. Can’t we please move past the fear and reach out to each other? Can we please just Make. It. Stop?

When I heard about Mali, those were my exact thoughts. So sorry you’re having to go through this. Sending you love. My post today is about this, too. We need a better world for our children– Baba deserves better than this.

First, Mae, thanks for visiting marc’s blog recently. I am now just catching up with you. I started out reading Easy Come, Easy Go, then got caught up in your piece here (Make it Stop) and my mind went from one area to another–each completely different. I was going to tell you how similar our thinking is (or isn’t) on social media…I’ve been at it several years now with no success, few followers and have no idea why. And, oh yeah, my books receive no benefit. I always asume it’s me until I see someone post a picture of a flower and nothing else and they get fifty “likes” while even the most thought-provoking thing I may post gets only a few if I’m lucky.. Okay, nuff feeling sorry for both of us. I was sorta okay with what Congress did, given the heat of the moment and the sense of how frustrating it is to get a handle on how one controls one “safemess”…but after reading your reaction I realize I have many of the same thoughts are spinning my brain round and round. It is, indeed, a puzzlement. And I go either way depending on the circumstance or how shallow my thinking can be. At this point, I’m not sure what makes sense nor if anything I’ve said here does…but you made me “feel” so put that feather in your writer’s cap because that’s what that is all about. Have a nice day…which means turn off all media.
best, marc kuhn
marckuhn.com

Well said, Mae. It astonishes me how many people remain ignorant when we have so much information available to us. But I think that is the Fear ruling their minds and hearts. Thank you for this thoughtful, heartfelt post. Cinda